Earlier in the year, iContact conducted a survey of small and mid-sized business marketers. Here are eight great facts about email marketing demonstrating how the medium continues to grow in popularity and strength:

Email’s #1 purpose is to share: While email has commanding share of the marketing budget, it’s also used to share. 92 percent of businesses say they use email to share information about new products or services; 90 percent said they use email to share news about their organization.

SMB email list size: Businesses surveyed have an average of 3,489 email subscribers; about one-quarter of businesses have fewer than 1,000 subscribers while about one-fifth have more than 10,000 subscribers on their email marketing lists.

Email at least once a week: 39 percent of businesses email their entire list about once per week— with 6 percent sending daily emails. 58 percent report sending emails to just part of their list about once per week, with 10 percent sending daily emails to a partial list.

Integrating email with other types of marketing: 64 percent of businesses coordinate email marketing with social media marketing—the most common of major tactics listed, followed by trade shows and events, person-to-person contact, and direct mail.

Still plenty of room for growth: 56 percent of businesses say they plan to increase their use of email marketing in 2013; email was second only to social media, which 60 percent of businesses said they plan to increase. SEO placed third with 41 percent.

Marketing has confidence in email: 32 percent of respondents said they were very confident in email marketing, while 78 percent said they were somewhat confident. Email marketing ranked third, behind personal outreach and events and ahead of social media.

Email marketing helps business: 91 percent of businesses said email marketing was either helpful or very helpful to their organization. Most businesses cite the precision audience segmentation that email offers and the ease with which customers and prospects can engage the brand.